When you imagine spending a day in the mountains, you don’t generally picture yourself second-hand smoking hundreds of cigarettes amidst thousands of people in a large, dimly lit room, but that’s pretty much what a day on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Xueshan in Chinese) near Lijiang in China‘s Yunnan province looks like for […]
Karakul Lake’s Sawut: A Soon-To-Be Global Fast Food Giant
Move over McDonald’s—it’s only a matter of time before the Sawut Fast Food Restaurant takes over your spot as the world’s number one franchise. Let’s just hope they don’t forget their humble roots on the shores of Karakul Lake in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China and continue to serve only the freshest horse […]
Yurt Life at Karakul Lake in Xinjiang Province
In the evening, our hosts made us a delicious noodle dinner. After the meal, they entertained us with a “disco night”, which involved some pretty bad music from a little portable radio and some crazy dancing by the local children. Naturally some of us (by which I mean people who weren’t me) joined [read more…]
Karakul Lake in Xinjiang Province: Escaping China’s Tourist Hordes
Regular readers will know that I really enjoy traveling in China, despite the numerous frustrations, and so far, I’ve written more posts on this blog about the Middle Kingdom than any other country. I have not yet written anything about China’s westernmost province, the Xianjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, though. That needs [read more…]
Leaving Danba Difficult Thanks to Minivan Drivers
Following our measly breakfast, it was time to head back to Danba. After our experience with the drunk driver the previous day, we were naturally not all that excited at the prospect of hiring another van to take us back to town. We asked our hosts if they could help us find a sober ride, but [read more…]
Homestay in Jiaju Where A Film Crew Steals our Feast
Once we had gotten rid of our drunk, lunatic driver, we had no choice but to walk around Jiaju village with all our bags until we found a place offering homestays that actually had rooms available. It took us about an hour, but we eventually ended up staying with a really nice family who had [read more…]
Hiring a Tibetan Driver and Somehow Surviving the Experience
After exploring the villages of Zhonglu and Suopo, it was time for lunch. If you remember, our driver felt we should have stopped for lunch much sooner and was none too pleased when 10 am rolled around and we still hadn’t eaten, but he was in a much better mood now that we were finally [read more…]
Sorry About This: Another Disgusting Chinese Toilet
This lovely restroom at Karakul Lake in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China was neither restful, nor a room. Rooms generally have doors and resting is difficult with no comfort, a stench every bit as bad as you might imagine from the photo and no light after dark. As if that wasn’t enough, they […]
Exploring the Tibetan Villages of Zhonglu and Suopo
Last week, I wrote about our first afternoon and evening in Danba, which were spent getting a hotel room, arranging a car and driver for the next morning, eating an average meal, and buying fresh fruit and a giant bag of peanuts to supplement that meal. I created quite a little mountain of [read more…]
Danba in Western Sichuan: A Tibetan City I was Actually Allowed to Visit
Traveling around the Tibetan areas of China is best done without much of a plan, as government policy on travel in those regions can change from day to day. It can be quite annoying, to be honest, and I certainly felt that annoyance on my most recent [read more…]